Memories
by The Forest Dog
Summary: When watching the setting sun a few days after Weirdmageddon, Dipper recalls some of the memories of his summer, while finally silencing the storm of dread that was always buried beneath him. (One-shot. Rated T to be safe. Disclaimer: I don't own Gravity Falls.)


_Memories_

Dipper leaned back against the tree bark, relishing the slight chill of the oncoming night. The sun was setting now. It lit the horizon in an reddish glow, like it was fire blazing in the distance. Of course, it wasn't, but the sight alone could have convinced somebody that it was in a blaze. The sky was tinted crimson and orange, the rays of sunlight fanning out into the clouds. And the clouds... They seemed the same way as the horizon. Almost like flame in the sky, like floating, burning pieces of fluff. Soon, the moon would be up, and the "fire" would go away, plunged into starry darkness.

Dipper's eyes never shifted from the display in front of him. Yes, he knew he wasn't supposed to be staring at the sun. He knew that someone could go blind if they weren't careful. But, right now, he couldn't be bothered to really care. It was just too magnificent. He couldn't tear his gaze from it. Or, to put it in better words, he couldn't look too far away from it. Occasionally, his gaze would drift from the sunset to the town that lay before it.

The town didn't show any sign of ever suffering from the apocalypse that had occurred only days before. Gravity Falls looked the same as it had before; which, honestly, wasn't that different from when it had been in total destruction. The whole town was practically always in _some_ sort of destruction. It was basically a fact of life here that chaos would occur. Dipper had gotten used to it. But that was what made him melancholy; he had gotten so attached to this town, and he would be leaving tomorrow.

He didn't want to leave. Sure, he had a lot of bad memories here. Being in the middle of a literal apocalypse isn't on anyone's bucket list, or, at least, it shouldn't be. But he felt that the fond memories he had made here overpowered the ones he wished he could forget...

_No, I don't want to forget the bad ones_, he told himself, shaking his head. Despite the horrors of those vile memories that would haunt him forever, he didn't want to forget them. He had learned that forgetting was more like a forfeiture than a gift. More harm came from forgetting than from remembering, he knew. And he _knew_ how he knew that. He knew not to forget because he hadn't forgotten his little "adventure" with the Society of the Blind Eye.

The short grass stems all around him swayed in the gentle breeze as he recalled that day. He remembered Blind Ivan, the leader of the society. He had tried to erase the memories of their whole summer. All of the moments would've been gone as if they had never been there in the first place. However, McGucket had spared them from paying the expense of their memories. He had saved them, and Dipper would _never _forget that.

Instinctively, Dipper's gaze drifted from the sun that was still setting to the Northwest Mansion. Of course, it didn't belong to the Northwests anymore. When McGucket had submitted the patents on his inventions to the US government, he had gained millions. The Northwests had lost all their money in Weirdmageddon -which was ultimately their own fault- and they had to put the mansion for sale to retain some of their fortune. Now, McGucket owned the mansion.

Dipper frowned, not at the memory of McGucket's recent purchase, but at himself. He would never forgive himself for believing that McGucket was just somebody who didn't know what he was saying, who didn't know what he was _doing_. Initially, Dipper thought he was just somebody unimportant, someone not worth a damn thing. But now Dipper knew that McGucket was a man with a heart of gold, and someone driven by horrid memories to make impulsive decisions...

Decisions like choosing to forget. And that's why Dipper didn't _want_ to forget... all you got from it was heartbreak, and loneliness. All you got was abandonment, and if you forgot your past, you'd eventually forget yourself, and _others_ would forget you. You'd be placed in the background like a shadow that nobody cared for enough to actually look at the details.

_I'll never make that same mistake again, _he vowed to himself. _I'll never judge somebody for what I've yet to see, or by the small things that I _have_ seen. The heart is what matters, the mind is what matters, not the small decisions. Not those small things..._

Dipper finally tore his gaze away from the mansion and the setting sun, away from the town that had suffered so much. He instead turned his eyes to look at the wooden shack in the woods, the shack where he felt more at home than he had ever felt at his actual home. He could make out the large red wooden sign placed on the side of its triangular roof, the sign that read "MYSTERY SHACK". Actually, no, it didn't say "MYSTERY SHACK". It said "MYSTERY HACK". The "S" of the sign had fallen off so long ago, or so it seemed, that it took Dipper a moment to recall when it had dropped of the roof.

Ah, yes, it had happened during his sword-fight with Sherlock Holmes, or rather, the wax version of said detective.

Dipper could barely stifle a snort of amusement. Sherlock Holmes, the great detective with enough wit for a thousand people, outsmarted by "a child in short pants", as Sherlock had called him. _Holmes should learn that he shouldn't overlook some things... He can solve a murder, but he still underestimates how much some people can do, _he thought to himself. But, yes, the "S" had been torn off in that fight, and still, after months, nobody bothered to fix it. Even when Gideon had destroyed the shack, they still couldn't have been bothered to fix the sign.

_Gideon, _Dipper thought, the air of calm that had previously surrounded him fading away into anger. Yes, he still despised the child psycho. He didn't think he could fully forgive somebody who had attempted to murder him.

_Multiple times_, he thought, piqued. Once by the little twerp's amulet, and once by his giant robot. Gideon had never succeeded, but Dipper had to reluctantly admit that he had come relatively close. Too close, in Dipper's opinion.

And then, Dipper realized with a small jolt, he had been so close to death more times than he could initially list. The most life-threatening scenarios had always come at the hands of the dream demon named Bill Cipher.

A storm of emotions swirled inside of him as he recalled the name. Animosity, dread, confusion, and one more that he couldn't place at the time. They bubbled inside of him, rising in intensity as memories flashed in his head. He remembered the first time he had laid eyes on the demon.

Dipper could still hear Bill's voice echoing in the back of his mind, his endless words and his infuriating laughter seeming never-ending in his head, as if it was being repeated in an umpteen loop. Dipper shut his eyes tightly, trying in vain to drown out high-pitched cackles.

Only when the repeating laughter in his head had faded away did he open his eyes again, and only then could he place a name to the emotion he had felt right besides animosity, dread, and confusion: Envy.

The thought struck him like a blow from a robust gun. Why would he envy the demon? Dipper pondered over this, and for a moment, he had not the slightest idea. What could he ever want from that malevolent demon?

And then Dipper realized why. No, it wasn't because he wanted to have Bill's power. He didn't want that. He just wanted to be able to feel something other than nagging fear and relentless anxiety. Bill was practically carefree; after all, almost nothing could harm him. He was an immortal being. And no, Dipper didn't want to be immortal... he just wanted to feel, for once, what it was like to be free of haunting terrors for just a moment.

Dipper drew in a deep breath. He was never truly calm. Even if he acted like it, even if he pretended to be released from the shackles of fear, he never really was. Whenever he had tried to act like nothing was wrong or like nothing was worrying him, he had been wearing a mask, concealing the distress he felt below, the unease that stirred beneath him.

Even the calm that he had felt when he was watching the sun... yes, he had faked that, too. It was such a habit, that he would continue the facade even when he was left alone. He always tried his best to keep the mask on...

Only then did he realize that the sun had almost dipped completely below the horizon. He could only see a pale glow, a faint trace of its light as it descended. The orange shine was beginning to fade into the black of night. Dipper could already see a few lone stars glittering in the sky.

Dipper averted his gaze. He didn't want to look at the view before him anymore. He couldn't explain why. He just... didn't feel like watching it. His mind drifted into more memories of the past, but only the horrifying and heinous ones. Then he thought of the terrors he had yet to witness, the ones that had yet to come to haunt him...

The storm inside of him felt like it was roaring louder than the fiercest lion. But then, something pierced through the storm in him, a few words that he remembered reading, a long time ago...

_"If you want to be happy, do not dwell in the past, do not worry about the future, focus on living fully in the present."_

Dipper slowed his breathing, his breathing that he only just realized had been rapid and fast. He returned his gaze to the now star-filled sky. He could make out some of the constellations in the nighttime, each one shining brighter than he had ever seen before.

_I shouldn't dwell on the past, and I shouldn't worry about the future... I can't change the past, and the future will come soon enough, _he thought. And as he stared into space, his own eyes reflecting the soft shine of the far-away stars, for the first time in his life, he felt a true calm descend upon him. It wasn't like the fake mask he usually wore. No... it was a real, true calm, for the first time in his life.

_I don't need to worry..._

**Author's Note:**

**Wow, I think that's the most descriptive story I've ever written...**

**Anyways, I made this one-shot just because of something that I really wanted to see in the show: A moment where one of the characters just thinks back and remembers a couple of things, while realizing a few things about themself.**

**So I just took my favorite character and did it. I hope it turned out good, and I hope I stuck to Dipper's mindset. I tried to make it as close to his personality as I could, while adding a hint of embellishment, because you can't go wrong with a bit of embellishment.**

**Anyways, I hope you enjoyed. I kind of made this just for myself, because it's something that I wanted to see, but you people can read it too.**

**So, thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed! (Sorry if I made any spelling mistakes or something...)**


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